Films shown at San Quentin Rehabilitation Center on consecutive days in October addressed literacy as a civil right, the failure of public school systems to meet the educational needs of dyslexic children, and an ongoing debate about how to teach reading.

Incarcerated workers of SQRC’s Peer Literacy Mentor Program attended both films. PLMP mentors help San Quentin residents struggling with literacy, and the films helped them better understand the challenges of their students.

Kareem Weaver, executive director and cofounder of Fulcrum Literacy, presented “Right to Read,” on Monday, Oct. 5 in Chapel B. The film focuses on the failure of public schools to teach reading skills effectively, especially to Black and Brown children.

Weaver, who has served as chairman of the Oakland NAACP Education Committee, sees literacy as a civil rights issue. “If you can’t read, you can’t access anything in our society,” he said.

His film shines a light on an ongoing controversy among educators: how to best teach reading. Weaver, with a professional background as a teacher and as a principal, advocates for an approach to reading dubbed “structured literacy.”

Structured literacy emphasizes phonetic awareness and, according to arguments set forth in the film, has proven more effective than “balanced literacy,” the method long used for reading instruction in public schools. Balanced literacy is not working, argues Weaver.

The second film, “Left Behind,” aired in the multipurpose room of San Quentin’s Learning Center on Tuesday, Oct. 6. The movie focused on the failure of public schools to provide for the special needs of dyslexic students. Director Anna Toomey became interested in the topic when she witnessed her dyslexic son struggling to read.

Between 15-20% of the U.S. population is dyslexic, but American public schools are reluctant to test for the condition or to provide services tailored to dyslexic students, according to the film.

The story showed a group of mothers, parents of dyslexic students in New York’s public schools, as they struggled with the city’s education bureaucracy to get testing and programs for their children. One of the mothers advocating for dyslexic students pointed out that “the answer to cancer may be in a dyslexic brain.”

The films’ presenters teamed with PLMP workers on question-and-answer panels following the airing of each film. The incarcerated mentors then returned to their task with fresh ideas about how to help their students learn to read.